The opposition leader, who presented the Liberation Agreement project in Miami, spoke about a future transition in Cuba in an interview with the Spanish newspaper ‘El Mundo’.
14ymedio, Madrid, 2 March 2026 — Part of the Cuban exile community in Miami gathered this Monday in the Varela Room of the Hermitage of Charity to learn about a new opposition alliance called the Liberation Agreement. The presentation was given by Orlando Gutiérrez Boronat, coordinator of the Cuban Resistance Assembly, and Rosa María Payá, who holds the same position within Pasos de Cambio [Steps for Change] (a platform of which Cuba Decides is a part).
Both have now joined forces in this proposal for “the release and consolidation of a comprehensive plan for the restoration of Democracy and the Rule of Law in Cuba, constituting a democratic alternative for Cubans and offering a viable framework for national reconstruction,” the organizers maintain.
Payá, a member of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and daughter of the late Orlando Payá, was interviewed earlier in the day by the Spanish newspaper El Mundo, to which she said, with hope, that this time she truly believes in imminent change in Cuba. “The Berlin Wall of our times can now be torn down,” she said.
Throughout the conversation, the opposition leader defends the role of organizations abroad as unifying forces that can help manage systemic change. She asserts that, over the past two years, her NGO has been working with six documents prepared by different platforms to develop a phased guide outlining the liberation, stabilization, transition, and ultimately, democratization of the country.
In addition, she said, there is another team dedicated exclusively to boosting economic recovery, which she considers urgent, though not as urgent as political change. And she is also working on the strategy of a team that can lead Cuba’s economic recovery. “If there’s one thing we Cubans understand very clearly, it is who is responsible for the misery in Cuba, and that responsibility lies with the Castro family and the group of generals in power, who manage that power through an intelligence apparatus that is also a repressive apparatus. The worst of all the crises is the political crisis, which keeps hundreds of people in prison for political reasons, simply for speaking their minds or trying to survive,” she declared.
Payá believes the United States is the most relevant international actor in “helping the Cuban people” at this time, and she is also grateful to it for making the prospect of change more real today than it has been in the last 67 years. “Those in power have the weapons and are willing to use them against the unarmed people. Given this reality, international pressure is also necessary, and this pressure has changed qualitatively thanks to the actions of the U.S. government, both in weakening the network of support that came from authoritarianism to the Cuban regime, such as subsidies from Venezuela, and in imposing direct sanctions on Cuban repressors,” she emphasizes.
However, she also believes that “it is not the place of the US to define, nor do I think it is seeking to define or direct the Cuban people.” In that sense, Payá also responds to the possibility that the aforementioned talks between Washington and Havana will include a Cuban “Delcy,” something she considers practically a given, as is the certainty that these individuals—from within the regime—will have to be dealt with.
“Of course, it will have to work with the people who operate those existing structures to definitively transform them. That’s why the process has phases, and that’s why it’s called a transition. It’s not that there will be free elections in Cuba tomorrow, but we will have a timeline for them to take place once we can transform the state and guarantee the rights and freedoms necessary for the elections to happen,” she admits. However, she defers to speaking with the White House when asked if it is Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro, Raúl Castro’s grandson, with whom U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is dealing.
Payá stated in the interview that “system change in Cuba requires forcing a military group to submit to the sovereign will of the citizens.”
Payá stated in the interview that “system change in Cuba requires forcing the military to submit to the sovereign will of the people,” and that this process requires, precisely, that the people mobilize. She understands, however, that the regime continues to repress, as demonstrated by the detention of the El4tico influencers, and therefore urges the international community to strongly support a democratization process in Cuba.
“The fact that Cubans are physically disappearing from the island (since ’11J’ — the Island-wide protests of 11 July 2021 — almost two million have fled, mostly young people) is like the ultimate metaphor for communism and what that regime means, a regime that destroys the souls and bodies of human beings. This is very concrete, very literal, and devastating. That is why there is a sense of urgency: Cubans are so clear that the only way out of the crisis is to end the dictatorship,” she asserts.
The initiative presented this Monday was attended by members of various organizations who signed the agreement after the opening speeches. Just two weeks ago, Cubans from both inside and outside the island also signed the “Agreement for a Free Cuba,” an initiative promoted by civil organizations with one objective: to demand an end to the dictatorship and a transition to democracy.
That document urged, among other things, the creation of a group “tasked with laying the foundations for a process of truth, justice, memory, and reconciliation, which would coordinate the main aspects of the transitional period.” More than a hundred people, including economists, writers, and artists, signed the proposal.
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